Apple is likely to miss a self-imposed deadline for delivering support for Microsoft's latest operating system to Mac users running its Boot Camp dual booting software.

In October, the Cupertino-based Mac maker said it planned to deliver support for Windows 7 through an update to Boot Camp that would arrive be year's end.

"Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year," the company wrote in a support document. "This support will require a software update to Boot Camp."

Asked whether Apple still planned to make good on that promise, a company support representative fielding Boot Camp-related questions said his division has received no update on the matter and his belief was that the update was still undergoing tests.

The representative said it was very unlikely that the update would surface in the next 24 hours, adding that a release sometime early next year would be a safer bet.

What is the real benefit versus a virtual machine? I prefer to have other OSes running in a window on a separate display.

On my MP? Gaming on windows and performance on linux. On windows I want DX10 (though I dont honestly game all that often).

When I boot to debian I want the OS to see all 8 cores - there's many scientific apps I run that work *far* better on linux. Usually I run them on one of several clusters available to me, but sometimes I need to test things locally.

In my experience, both Fusion and Parallels are slow, buggy, take up a lot of space, and cause all kinds of shut-down problems (even on my new machines). I have Bootcamp running XP on a 3+ year-old machine, and it is vastly superior -- simply no comparison.

I think the virtues of each method largely depends on how often you need to use Windows and for what. I have some Windows specific software that I use everyday and regularly as part of my job. Boot camp is not a solution for me under these circumstances because I need to switch between the Windows software and Macs software in the matter of minutes.

With Boot Camp, I'd have to start up the Mac every time I wanted to switch OSes. I like Fusion a lot, and it is a far better solution then the old Virtual PC. For processor intensive applications there is a speed hit, but I do not notice it. This probably is because at work I use an old PC running the same Windows software I use on my Mac with Fusion. At home, my Mac is brand new and puts the old Windows machine to shame.

When I want to play a Windows game, I usually use Boot Camp because I do not need to switch between Mac and Windows programs and the performance is better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hal 9000

What is the real benefit versus a virtual machine? I prefer to have other OSes running in a window on a separate display.

Are you running it in Boot Camp or in Virtualization software like Fusion? If in Boot Camp, that is interesting.

Pretty straightforward. Anyone who wants to run it natively doesnt need to wait for Apple. Pretty much all the Vista drivers work with Win7. The only caveat is the touchpad driver, as mentioned above by Tcrown, but in all honesty I havent heard of a multi-touch trackpad that works great under any other vendor with Windows running.

nobody mentioned it yet, so I will in case some people didn't know this -

one of the best ways of installing Win 7 (now or when it's officially supported with complete drivers, etc.) is to use Bootcamp in the standard manner to allocate an independent partition for Win 7. This of course will allow you to boot the computer into Win 7 natively. If you have Parallels 5 (not sure about Fusion or earlier versions) you can then create a virtual machine (inside of Mac OS X obviously) that can boot your bootcamp partition. It's really easy, just use the Parallels new virtual machine wizard. This will allow you to use the same Win 7 setup running natively by booting into it, or if you don't need the higher performance, you can also boot into the virtual version via Parallels at any time. Note, when I did this, Win 7 did ask me to re-activate Win 7 - I did this with no trouble though.

I'm guessing that the virtual machine will probably perform a bit better when running Win 7 out of its own partition rather than a file within a Mac OS X partition.

In my experience, both Fusion and Parallels are slow, buggy, take up a lot of space, and cause all kinds of shut-down problems (even on my new machines). I have Bootcamp running XP on a 3+ year-old machine, and it is vastly superior -- simply no comparison.

nobody mentioned it yet, so I will in case some people didn't know this -

one of the best ways of installing Win 7 (now or when it's officially supported with complete drivers, etc.) is to use Bootcamp in the standard manner to allocate an independent partition for Win 7. This of course will allow you to boot the computer into Win 7 natively. If you have Parallels 5 (not sure about Fusion or earlier versions) you can then create a virtual machine (inside of Mac OS X obviously) that can boot your bootcamp partition. It's really easy, just use the Parallels new virtual machine wizard. This will allow you to use the same Win 7 setup running natively by booting into it, or if you don't need the higher performance, you can also boot into the virtual version via Parallels at any time. Note, when I did this, Win 7 did ask me to re-activate Win 7 - I did this with no trouble though.

I'm guessing that the virtual machine will probably perform a bit better when running Win 7 out of its own partition rather than a file within a Mac OS X partition.

Enjoy,
K

PS. I don't work for Parallels - just a relatively happy user...

In fact, using a product like rEFIt one can TRIPLE boot (or more perhaps?) into Windows, Linux and OS X.

nobody mentioned it yet, so I will in case some people didn't know this -

one of the best ways of installing Win 7 (now or when it's officially supported with complete drivers, etc.) is to use Bootcamp in the standard manner to allocate an independent partition for Win 7. This of course will allow you to boot the computer into Win 7 natively. If you have Parallels 5 (not sure about Fusion or earlier versions) you can then create a virtual machine (inside of Mac OS X obviously) that can boot your bootcamp partition. It's really easy, just use the Parallels new virtual machine wizard. This will allow you to use the same Win 7 setup running natively by booting into it, or if you don't need the higher performance, you can also boot into the virtual version via Parallels at any time. Note, when I did this, Win 7 did ask me to re-activate Win 7 - I did this with no trouble though.

I'm guessing that the virtual machine will probably perform a bit better when running Win 7 out of its own partition rather than a file within a Mac OS X partition.

Enjoy,
K

PS. I don't work for Parallels - just a relatively happy user...

I currently use bootcamp and have a copy of VMWare, so am interested to know...

When you start up your bootcamped Windows partition as a virtual machine, does Parallels then save the VM to your Mac, and therefore double up the size of Windows?

Once you've worked in Parallels, can you then bootcamp into Windows and carry on or are the changes not reflected back into the Windows partition?

Many of the most important software concepts were invented in the 70s and forgotten in the 80s.

Win 7 runs fine on my Macbook Pro, except the track bad is buggy as hell under Windows 7 and I can't update my video drivers. Full support would be nice.

I read that Snow Leopard allows Windows to see the Mac partition. How does the Mac filesystem appear within Windows? Is it similar to the way that the Windows files appear as a read-only disk on the desktop in Leopard?

I have a real need to process some of my Mac documents using full-on Office and currently am shunting files back and forth.
I haven't gone to Snow Leopard as I'm waiting for my nice friend to test the ScanSnap scanner for me.

Many of the most important software concepts were invented in the 70s and forgotten in the 80s.

I think the virtues of each method largely depends on how often you need to use Windows and for what. I have some Windows specific software that I use everyday and regularly as part of my job. Boot camp is not a solution for me under these circumstances because I need to switch between the Windows software and Macs software in the matter of minutes.

With Boot Camp, I'd have to start up the Mac every time I wanted to switch OSes. I like Fusion a lot, and it is a far better solution then the old Virtual PC. For processor intensive applications there is a speed hit, but I do not notice it. This probably is because at work I use an old PC running the same Windows software I use on my Mac with Fusion. At home, my Mac is brand new and puts the old Windows machine to shame.

When I want to play a Windows game, I usually use Boot Camp because I do not need to switch between Mac and Windows programs and the performance is better.

Exactamundo. same situation here. At work I use Fusion so I can rapidly switch back and forth. It's not without its bugs and headaches however.

At home, I boot into Windows to play some games which require as much horsepower as you can throw at them and would never run in a virtual machine.

I read that Snow Leopard allows Windows to see the Mac partition. How does the Mac filesystem appear within Windows? Is it similar to the way that the Windows files appear as a read-only disk on the desktop in Leopard?

I have a real need to process some of my Mac documents using full-on Office and currently am shunting files back and forth.
I haven't gone to Snow Leopard as I'm waiting for my nice friend to test the ScanSnap scanner for me.

Far as I know, Windows cannot read the OS X file system without the addition of software on the Windows side.

However OS X can read the Windows file system.

Question is, do you REALLY want insecure Windows to be able to read and change your OS X files?

I don't think permissions come into play because with Bootcamp, OS X isn't running. So if Windows could read the files on the OS X partition, it also could change it or infect it.

The OS X partition should be FileVaulted so it's totally encrypted on the drive. Unfortunately this makes it hard to clone, recover and repair the OS X partition if it fails to boot.

This is why I like using a VM product for other OS's (using the VM's snapshot feature to toss hosed OS's) instead of Bootcamp and just clone the whole boot drive (virtual machines and all) to a couple of externals.

With Bootcamp there are different file structures on two or more partitions, which each need their own cloning software to back up to multiple partitions on backup drives. Talk about a hassle!

Also Office, I assume, isn't all that performance demanding, I use Open Office instead. So really you only need performance with a Bootcamp install of Windows for games and other "full processor" demanding applications.

I run 4 operating systems at once on my MBP with 4 GB of RAM and a 7,200 RPM hard drive, no serious performance issues. This is with iTunes visuals running in XP, Vista and OS X at the same time.

The danger is that we sleepwalk into a world where cabals of corporations control not only the mainstream devices and the software on them, but also the entire ecosystem of online services around...

I have Parallels and have been running Windows 7 in a virtual window without any problems. Since I loaded up the VM with a lot of memory (Parallels has a slider that lets you control how much ram the VM can use out of the total ram on the machine), the performance has been excellent. I'm using a macbook pro. On my macbook at home I noticed (since I have less installed memory) that performance isn't as good on either Windows 7 or Mac OS. Since they have the same CPU (13" MBP and newest 13" MB) I am guessing the extra RAM helps.

I like Parallels since you can have multiple OS VM's and I have XP installed as well on my MBP. I tried using bootcamp and it worked fine until one day the partition got corrupted and I couldn't load it any more. I got really annoyed with that - at least with Parallels and Fusion you can save a snapshot of your VM.

What is the purpose of this link? Are you saying it's better than (or as good as) Bootcamp? If so, I would love to see some proof, or at least, additional data (instead of just a link).

I can answer this one. It is pretty good (virtual box) with the exception of supporting drag and drop. Use Parallels for a while, but lost my VM to a blue screen and never got it back. Switched to VMWare, and have never looked back.

Windows 7 in boot camp works fine on some older macs.
Windows 7 works in Parallels, Virtual Box (free) and VMware.
Windows 7 boot camp does not install to the point where you can load your own drivers on the 27" iMac. My guess from the attempt is that windows is trying to output video to the external miniDP port not the LCD. For the moment, the screen just goes black. Probably needs a firmware fix.
Magic Mouse does now work in windows, with scrolling.
Cutter Snow Leopard boot camp drivers provide a D: drive in My Computer which mounts the Mac partition in a READ ONLY state. So file access is there, very much read only though.

Boot camp is only needed when you require 100% performance and/or native hardware driver support, eg 3D gaming, windows only music sofware with hardware that needs drivers, dongles, and so on. Some USB devices fail to enjoy working in a virtual machine.

You don't need a book to do this. It's actually pretty simple on a Mac.

Install rEFIt
Install whatever flavor of windows you prefer via Boot Camp
Shrink your OS X partition by whatever size you want your Linux partition to be using the Disk Utility
Go through the Linux install as normal, except specify the 'Advanced Options' and tell it to install the boot loader on the Linux partition, rather than the first partition.

As long as your Boot Camp partition is always the last one on the disk, this method will work with any number of OS's.

A little fud going on here.
Windows 7 boot camp does not install to the point where you can load your own drivers on the 27" iMac. My guess from the attempt is that windows is trying to output video to the external miniDP port not the LCD. For the moment, the screen just goes black. Probably needs a firmware fix.
Magic Mouse does now work in windows, with scrolling.

The fix for this is easy. Once you get to the black screen issue, boot windows into safe mode command prompt, and delete any %WINDIR%\\System32\\drivers\\ATI*.SYS files and reboot.

The stock ATI driver doesn't work with the new ATI cards in the 27" iMac. Deleting them will allow you to continue without issue.